Interviews From Yale Radio / Artists, Curators And More

Photo: Elon Schoenholz, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery For over four decades, Raúl Guerrero (b. 1945, Brawley, California) has made work informed by his experiences navigating cultures as an American of Mexican ancestry in Southern California. In his paintings, photographs, video, and performance works, Guerrero utilizes language and cultural signifiers to examine notions of place as a way to understand personal concepts of self. An aspect of his work depicts—and critiques—colonial narratives in the Americas such as the settlement of the Great Plains, the history of Latin America, and imposed notions of the American “West.” With compositions fusing Mexican, American, and European visual traditions, he incorporates influences ranging from the readymades of Marcel Duchamp to conceptually-oriented practices associated with a preceding generation of California artists (including John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha) who emerged from Guerrero’s alma mater, the Chouinard Art Institute. A long-time exhibiting artist